Vanessa is upon Agatha the second they're at the dinner table.
"Don't say anything silly this time, dear." she says brightly as they take their seats.
"Quite sure I don't know what you mean." Says Agatha mildly, knowing exactly what she means.
"You know what you said."
"I'm not sure I do, but I'll try my very best to remember what I may have said to offend you."
Vanessa's smile is rather fixed, now. She takes a breath to say something else, but is interrupted by the advisor from earlier, as he leans over the table to speak to them.
"I hope the food will be to your liking. We've endeavoured to present the very best of this country's cuisine for you."
Agatha grins, as he can't see her face. She is not hard to please on the food front.
"I'm sure it will."
He smiles a little. He's short and stocky and has a weak jaw, but his eyes are very shrewd. He can't be much older than Tedros or Agatha, but he's probably around twenty three.
"Please let me know if you require anything at all. I am Duke Weatherford, the King's personal advisor."
Vanessa thanks him profusely, obviously. Agatha mumbles vague thanks and glances at Tedros, sat prettily and doing absolutely nothing opposite her. She wonders, again, who the real brains is behind the throne. Then, as she turns back to Weatherford, she realises he's also wearing white gloves.
In fact, looking around, it seems to Agatha that the entire Camelot court is doing so. Perhaps it's in fashion.
On her other side, she can tell that Sophie and Callis are both staring at Tedros. Sophie has been gawking since the second they walked in-- probably trying to commit every one of his perfect pores to memory-- and Tedros has been ignoring her. Agatha can't say she blames him. He's probably subject to stares all the time, and his face looks even more flawless under candlelight.
But Callis had sat back in her chair and eyed him in much the same manner as a hawk who is eyeing up a particularly stupid rabbit to kill.
"Callis." Hisses Agatha out of the corner of her mouth. "Stop it."
"I'm not doing anything."
"You look like you're trying to kill him with your mind. Regicide is not on the menu."
"Peacock is, though."
"Oh, ha, ha. Anyway, how could you possibly already know that he's a p--" Agatha catches sight of Tedros staring at himself in one of the silver plates and sighs. "Right, okay."
She leans over.
"Your highness, I don't believe I've yet introduced you to my nursemaid, Lady Netherwood?"
Tedros's eyes snap up from the plate, and he suddenly appears rather apprehensive.
"I... don't think so." He says, and forces another one of those charming, slightly insecure, smiles. Callis merely inclines her head. Tedros looks rather helpless. Agatha gets the distinct impression that he's not used to being disliked, and doesn't know what to do about it.
"You--you've worked with the princess long, ma'am?"
"Since the day she was born." Says Callis coolly. "I named her."
"Oh, you-- you did?"
Callis glances over at Vanessa, who is twittering away to Weatherford.
"Her mother was somewhat... busy."
"Busy" fighting with Stefan and demanding to know what was wrong with her daughter, thinks Agatha. It had taken her years to get that particular story out of Callis, but Callis still remembers it, word for word;
"Oh, you just name her. Something boring. I don't care."
Callis had frowned.
"But my lady, I thought you said you were to name her after yourself, should it be a girl."
Vanessa had cast a disdainful glance down at the baby fussing in Callis's arms.
"I don't think that will be necessary." she'd said, and shot a glance at the charred floorboards where the cradle had stood. "Maybe you ought to name her Hestia."
Goddess of the hearth. Genius. Agatha had scowled when Callis had told her.
"I see." Tedros fiddles with one of his forks, but both Agatha and Callis can see him frowning a little at Vanessa. "You chose well. It's a nice name."
Agatha thinks Callis actually chose it just to be perverse, because it makes her sound vaguely witchy and very un-princessy, but she doesn't press the point.
"I never had a nursemaid." Tedros continues vaguely. "My mother insisted on doing everything herself."
Then he looks back at Agatha.
"How nice of her." Says Agatha simply, but she gets his meaning.
Not so stupid, after all. Then again, it probably doesn't take a genius to deduce that Vanessa is a terrible mother. You just need to spend more than half an hour with her and Agatha at the same time.
Callis looks a little more accepting. 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' and all that.
"Queen Guinevere, wasn't it?"
Tedros winces a little.
Queen Guinevere who eloped with one of his father's knights, yes. It's the one thing Agatha knows about Camelot. It would be impossible not to know it, frankly. Shook the entire woods.
"So, it was just your father, after she... left?" Asks Callis mercifully getting the message and, at least, approaching it tactfully and skirting saying it outright..
Tedros takes a breath to answer--
Sophie leans over.
"Aggie, you haven't introduced me to the King!"
Yeah, thinks Agatha sourly. I know I haven't.
"Oh, right." She says. "This is my lady in waiting, Sophie--"
"Aldridge." Says Sophie promptly, deliberately using her real-- and royal-- surname, instead of the fake one, like a podge.
Agatha could have screamed.
Tedros blinks.
"You're related to the Princess?"
Sophie beams at him, smoothing her golden hair and pink dress. Such a contrast to Agatha.
"I'm her s--"
"You're my cousin." Snarls Agatha.
Sophie blinks, as if coming out of a trance, and turns to see Agatha leaning across Callis, staring at her.
"Right." She says, momentarily meek. "Cousins."
Sophie has done a lot of stupid things, but attempting to announce her bastard status to claim she's a sort-of-Princess so she might have a better chance with Agatha's betrothed (!!!) is definitely the crowning jewel.
Another point for the Tedros Might Have A Brain argument is that he doesn't look convinced. Then again, Sophie had got the first syllable out before Agatha had shut her up, and there was no other relation that started with s.
Agatha has to physically resist putting her head in her hands.
"I didn't know the Queen had siblings." Tedros says uncertainly.
"She's on my father's side." Lies Agatha quickly. "He had a half brother."
He didn't, but Tedros didn't need to know that.
"Oh, I see." He frowns. "Funny, my father never mentioned that. He was friends with Prince Stefan in his youth."
Agatha and Callis look at each other, horrified--
They're saved by the arrival of the first course.
---
Agatha has never had such exquisite food. Tiny, fragile pastries are the entree, filled with a spectrum of colourful, fragrant sauces and a variety of perfectly cooked meats--
"Wrong fork." Hisses Vanessa as Agatha prepares to spear one of them. Agatha blinks.
"Huh?"
"That's the salad fork."
"What's the difference?"
"Just use the right one, Agatha."
"But--"
Vanessa smiles awkwardly at Tedros and Weatherford, who are trying to look like they're not staring.
"Put it down."
"But they all look the same! How do you know--"
Vanessa scowls and turns away, presumably hoping someone else would help her. But Callis is talking to the Lord Scourie from earlier, arm obscuring her cutlery, and Sophie isn't even eating, just gazing at Tedros.
"But I don't know--" Agatha stops, staring helplessly at the vast variety of cutlery spread before her. She'd never been taught this, given Vanessa never took her to formal dinners. There's even more than one wine glass.
She looks back over at Vanessa, but Vanessa is ignoring her, eating daintily with a fork that looks exactly the same as all the others. Agatha looks down at the space beside her, hoping to see where she'd taken the fork from--
But she's pushed them all close together, so Agatha won't be able to copy her.
Agatha calls her something foul under her breath and resolves to just choose one at random--
A white gloved finger taps the fork closest to the plate.
Agatha's head snaps up.
Meat fork. Mouths Tedros.
Why are you helping me? is halfway onto Agatha's lips before she remembers she's wearing a veil and he can't see her face. Slowly, she nods.
Copy me.
Agatha nods again, mildly bewildered.
Tedros smiles-- not that charming, close-lipped smirk, but a conspirator's grin-- and returns to his plate.
---
Agatha can see Vanessa glaring at her.
In the lull between courses, she snatches one of the bread rolls and tears it in half with her bare hands, not really caring that she's probably supposed to use a knife. The food is a million times better than the tiny, bland, elegantly plated portions at home, and she's enjoying herself for the first time today. It's hard not to. Stuffed birds with sharp, unidentifiable fillings, clear soups which seemed to change flavour as you swallowed them, white fish with swirls of watercress and drizzled with a rich white sauce, a huge selection of delicate canapés and perfectly golden, still warm bread rolls stamped with the dragon crest-- there's no way she's going to leave any of it.
Vanessa is clearly not impressed, though. She's eyeing the roll in Agatha's hands as if it's personally offensive, and keeps shooting apologetic glances over at Tedros, like she feels the need to compensate for Agatha's behaviour.
Agatha forces down the impulse to shove it down her throat, and wonders what she can do to--
An idea strikes her.
She looks up deliberately, and pretends as if she's only just seen Tedros looking at them for the first time.
"Oh," she says cheerfully. "Do you want the other half?"
She offers it to him across the table.
Vanessa groans quietly. Callis snorts into her wine glass.
Tedros blinks at her.
Agatha is just thinking this has the potential to go slightly wrong, when Tedros puts his hand out and takes it.
"Thank you. That's very kind."
Hah!
That'll teach Vanessa. If he plays along with improper behaviour, he'll be harder for her to charm.
Unfortunately, Agatha is given a problem of her own as Sophie takes advantage of the lull in conversation to pounce back onto Tedros.
"When were you coronated?" she asks sweetly. "I saw a portrait of it out in the hall. You looked very handsome."
Tedros smiles indulgently, but he's not really looking at her.
"Last year. I had regents up until I was sixteen." He indicates Weatherford.
"I can't imagine all that responsibility at sixteen." muses Sophie. "You must be very able."
You can't imagine any responsibility at all, thinks Agatha sourly. Sophie doesn't do much, apart from criticise Agatha's fashion sense, follow her around, and tie up her dress laces. It's Agatha, the least favourite and also the official heir, who gets landed with all the paperwork that Vanessa doesn't want to do.
Tedros shrugs uncomfortably.
"Perhaps."
"Was it a grand coronation? Lots of people?"
Unless Agatha is very much mistaken. Tedros shoots Weatherford a rather panicked glance. In response, Weatherford fields the question. Tedros shoves the bread Agatha had given him into his mouth, presumably as an excuse not to speak.
How curious.
"Half the kingdom turned out, didn't they, Tedros?" says Weatherford, chuckling slightly. Tedros nods slowly, but he doesn't look at him, or at anyone else, picking crumbs off his gloves with a slightly unsteady hand. Agatha watches him closely, frowning.
"I'm sure it went very well." smiles Sophie.
Weatherford glances at Tedros.
"Yes, we had... lots of compliments."
He's dodged the question, Agatha realises.
What happened at the coronation--?
"I'm sure you did." purrs Sophie, and Agatha goes back to daydreaming about braining her with the wine bottle.
---
"What was that?" snarls Agatha, the second they leave the hall, wheeling on Sophie in the middle of the crush of nobles. Sophie opens her mouth--
"Agatha!" trills Vanessa, looming up behind them.
"I used the right cutlery." snaps Agatha. She's tired and stressed and has spent far too much time in Vanessa's vicinity today. Decorum is not on her mind.
"Because the King was kind enough to help you." says Vanessa. "I was actually here to question how much you ate."
So, she'd noticed. Agatha had thought she would. Would've been hard not to, considering she'd eaten like a starving man.
"Well," she says coolly, "When you've spent the last two days vomiting, because someone decided to go by ship despite being well aware that, it seems natural you'd be hungry."
"Oh, Agatha. I've told you why we had to go by ship." sighs Vanessa, projecting the perfect impression of a hard-done-by mother.
Agatha clenches her jaw--
Someone behind them clears his throat.
She turns to find Tedros standing behind her, and they all drop into hasty curtsies. Tedros looks dismissive.
"Oh, don't bother. My apologies. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"No." says Agatha firmly. "Not at all. Was there something you wanted?"
"Er." Tedros rubs his jaw awkwardly. "I was wondering if you'd permit me to escort you back to your rooms?"
Agatha stares at him, taken aback, forgetting that he can't see her facial expression.
Tedros, clearly unnerved by the veil-clad, expressionless, silent response, opens his mouth to backtrack--
"I would." says Agatha sweetly, aware of Sophie stood right behind her. "Thank you."
----
"Your nursemaid seems very caring." says Tedros, leading her through a rabbit warren of elaborate tapestries and paintings sporting wrinkly old men. Agatha's glad that he's taking her, because, frankly, she has no idea where she's going, yet. "I gather she's seen you through most things."
Yes, he'd definitely noticed that Callis was staring at his back as they'd left. Agatha had half expected her to set the back of his silks on fire, but she supposed that was her forte.
"She has." says Agatha casually, fiddling with her veil.
"And your mother?"
"She's... played her part." says Agatha thinly. Played her part in making Agatha love Callis more, anyway.
"I see."
At least someone does, Agatha thinks. The people of Gavaldon certainly don't, and no one here seems to have realised anything is amiss-- apart from their lord, apparently.
They walk in silence a little further. It's a lot cooler in this part of the castle. Not that temperature particularly bothers Agatha either way, but she'd been able to tell that it was hot in that dinner hall. It's less oppressive up here.
She watches Tedros out of the corner of her eye. He's certainly not what she'd expected, and she feels a little bad for having called him stupid to Sophie and Callis, earlier. He doesn't seem the shrewdest, and the fact he still relies on his ex-regent seems to suggest a lack of certainty, but he doesn't appear to be a terrible judge of character. He's just a bit... ditzy.
Though, watching him check his flawless face in every gilded mirror they past, she can't resist rolling her eyes. Surely he knows that he looks polished to perfection. He'd looked far too pleased when Sophie had complimented him, earlier.
Oh, Sophie. God.
"And my cousin...?"
"Very-- er, very charming." says Tedros quickly-- and uncomfortably. Agatha smirks. "She's also your lady in waiting?"
"Yes, we spend a lot of time together."
"You're a similar age?"
"She's about a year younger than me." says Agatha. "More your age, really."
"Oh, I didn't realise."
"She likes to pretend she's older, considering people can't compare our faces to see who looks eldest."
Then she winces internally, knowing she's going to have led him onto the topic of the veil.
She sees him sneak a glance at her, almost the second it's out of her mouth.
"Yes." he says. "That's... true."
He hesitates.
"Er, I know I asked earlier, but I thought, in an informal setting--"
But Agatha is already shaking her head.
"I'm afraid I've given you my answer."
"...right. But is it a medical thing, or--"
"I'm sorry, your highness, I can't tell you. Not now. You'll know eventually."
"When?"
Truthfully, Agatha has no idea.
"Well," she says vaguely. "Can't keep it on til death do us part, so..."
She shrugs. She's slightly regretting bringing up the wedding, but Tedros barely reacts.
"...yeah." Tedros frowns, but he looks more annoyed at himself than her. "Sorry."
"It's alright." Agatha is starting to recognise their surroundings, now, which means they can't be far away. And, sure enough, they're approaching the door that Agatha was ushered through earlier.
Tedros stops awkwardly, and Agatha rifles in her pockets for the key.
"There'll be guards stationed on both ends of the corridor." he says finally, breaking the silence. "If you need anything. Or there's a problem."
"Thank you." says Agatha vaguely, producing the key. "I'm sure we'll be fine."
Another awkward silence descends. Agatha finishes unlocking the door, and turns to him--
"The people liked you." Tedros blurts, suddenly. "I heard that. They told me. The court, I mean. Everyone's excited about... you know. Getting a Queen."
Agatha leans against the door and looks at him. His age is showing in this moment. He's an inch or so shorter than her, and still has odd little bits of childishness about him, especially how big and earnest his eyes are, and how he's twisting one of the gold links on his sleeve. He looks rather embarrassed, and Agatha half-expects him to blush, but his skin is as pristine as ever. There's a brown, sort of tan, smudge on one of his gloves.
"How sweet." she says. "They were very nice today."
Tedros nods quickly.
"A-and for what it's worth, I'm glad to have met you. I think I'll--um."
He stumbles to a clumsy stop.
Agatha nearly snorts. She's had no etiquette training, and he apparently can't string a sentence together. What a regal pair they shall make.
"That's kind." she says quickly, realising he's ready to die from embarrassment. "Thank you."
She gets the distinct impression he doesn't know how to approach her, given she's utterly unreadable. He's not half as formal when he's on his own. Perhaps Weatherford feeds him lines.
Then she actually thinks about what he said, and realises she doesn't know how to respond, either.
"Um--"
Heels sound in the corridor behind them, as does a loud chattering, answered by a lower, calmer voice.
"Sophie." Agatha says, in response to Tedros's questioning look. "And Callis."
"I'll take my leave." says Tedros quickly, already backing away. "You'll probably want to retire."
"Alright. Thank you." Not for the first time, Agatha wishes people could tell when she was smiling at them. "Goodnight."
Coincidentally, Tedros smiles back, even though there's no real way he can tell.
"Goodnight."
He offers her a small bow, then turns and heads off down the corridor.
Agatha watches him go, twisting the fabric of her glove thoughtfully.
How interesting.
Well, she certainly wasn't going to be bored.